I would go further: I am sceptical about the value of examinations, and even more sceptical about the validity of judging anyone’s ability only on the basis of the numbers or letters on a piece of paper.

Being an admissions tutor in higher education is a good basis for assessing how reliable exam results are as a measure of a person’s true abilities.

Because of the large numbers of students applying for university every year, most universities look at the paperwork only, and rely on grades as the final determiner.

But if you interview candidates, read longer pieces of work they have produced during their studies, look at their curricula vitae and their references from their schools, a much fuller and much more accurate picture emerges.

On that basis, a thoughtful institution can back its own judgment about the capacity of a candidate to mature and develop as a mind and a person, which is what the aim of higher education should be.

The process just described is time-consuming and labour-intensive. That means it is expensive. For these reasons very few institutions do it.

The result is a crude system of selection massively over-reliant on grades, made worse by the fact that the exam system which awards those grades is so deeply imperfect.

In an ideal world there would be few examinations, and their use would be confined to getting students to sum up and bring together the fruits of their studies. At most the resultant grades would be indicative.

Only the reading of longer pieces of work which have been more carefully prepared, and interviews, can really reveal genuine capacities and abilities; and these should be the basis of selecting students for higher study.

The chief imperfection of the A Level system is that in too many subjects the exams are highly prescriptive; there is a set off boxes to tick to get a good grade, and some of the brightest and most creative students have to be reined in by their teachers in order to conform to the requirements of the exam.

Again and again I have heard this wail of complaint from many sixth form teachers: ‘I say to a student, this is brilliant but it won’t get you a good mark; you have to do this or that instead to get your A star.’

This situation is so utterly wrong that it cries out for even more major reform than is currently contemplated.

In my view the universities should each develop their own methods of admissions assessment. Oxford and Cambridge once had their own entrance examinations, and they still interview likely candidates.

A return to that model by all universities would be a major step in the right direction, providing this did not simply mean their replacing A-levels with a hundred or more variants of A-levels, but used more imaginative and searching methods of assessment.

Such methods would not be tied to whatever curriculum was being followed at school, but to testing students’ thinking ability and general knowledge, just as the former Oxbridge entrance examinations sought to do. Any good school should be able to prepare students for a general assessment of this kind.

The complaint that AS results are needed for determining who should be offered places conditional on A Level results can be overcome by this method.

Universities could offer assessments in the final term of the upper sixth, giving them time to make their offers at the end of the summer in that year; without an intermediary between the student and the university which, in effect, does the selection for the university – an examination board – the process would be much streamlined.

This proposal is premised on getting away from a mass examination system, and replacing exam preparation with education.

It means asking more of universities themselves in choosing candidates on a more tailored understanding of the individual candidate.

In my own college we are moving in that direction by the intensive and personal student-focused selection system we operate; we know what we want in the way of very bright and enthusiastic students who are prepared to work hard on a programme of study which is much fuller and more demanding than the average undergraduate programme; not every four-A-star candidate is right for it, whereas some unusual and highly individual candidates are.

We back our own judgment, and so far, we are extremely pleased that we do so.